Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-03-17
GOOD SHORTHAND WRITERS.


Why They Are Scarce-The Training Necess-
airy to Efficiency-GOod Positions Always
Awaiting Intelligent Experts.
eff young man wanted to be always
sure of position" said business man
ager in Boston lately, 81 would have him
learn to write shorthand, learn the type
writer, and add bookkeeping, SO that he
could keep the accounts at a pinch. Then
no matter how hard the times were, he
would be sure to work. If he got out of
place I'd agree to take care of him till
he found another, every time"
Now don't rush off for 'Pitman' or ioin
shorthand class till you know what you
are about, for good deal more goes to
making stenographer than knowledge
of how to write shorthand In the first
place to be good shorthand writer land
second rate one is not worth the room
he take) requires The firmest, soundest
nerve. No business that can be named
takes SO much out of one as short hand
reporting. Hearing, eyesight, hand and
brain are called upon for their highest
work and the most intense attention
Sandy haired boys of senguine tempera-
ment or pale Tipped dark ones should
every case alone, except for amusement
Hundreds of such young men are
carried to their graves every year from
the offices and newspapers of the city
who might be hale, long lived men had
not they mistaken their vocation Lean,
wiry men and women are best for desk
work, and stand the drain of indoor life
with less loss. The young men and wom-
en- who have sort of desire for easy posi-
tions should let short hand writing
alone.
The shorthand writer like toe typical
newspaper man, wants to have the widest
intelligence pOssible-to know something
about everything, at least enough to know
what Is talked about. For not only mer-
chants and lawyers, but physicians, edit
ors and literary men, to say nothing of
physicians, are coming to find the servi-
ces of shorthand writer of great use in
their profession. And to be of use, he
must be man who takes things at a word
who knows geographical name or a
charter in history or LECTION when he
hears it, without stopping to ask what
that word was and bOtkering to have it
spelled-a process which goes far to drive
the principal debating out of his senses
The secretary needs such keen and close
attention as to catch the direction and
the exact words without having to utter
that irritating "What?' every ten minutes
or Oftener, breaking the tread of thought
and wasting time. His express bust
ness is to make the most of it for an over
weighted principal whose moments are
precious. Then, as CORES ponding clerk
or secretary he must have the forms of
good business address at command, so
that he can put curt directions into courte-
Gus and well-turned phrase. An order
worth thousands may be lost the house
by too stiff tone, the offensive indepen-
dence of a phrase, or one which has
something over polite and solicitous
about it.
II want man" said Boston merchant
asking for stenographer, "who can take
my idea in three words and put into
shape in letter, neatly written, spaced
and directed. If | can get such man
he's sure of good place as long as I'm
going" But the clever head of a refer
ence office he applied to could only shake
his head and say, off we had twenty such
men they would all find places tomorrow
and many the day after.'
A keen business man of wide experience
in many kinds of work says: "The
trouble with three fourths of the young
men and girls who learn shorthand and
typewriting is they don't know anything.
They expect to get along by knowing
their one branch and nothing else, and it
Is no use. You get clever girl at type
writer-one who can rattle off eighty
words of a Declaration of Independence
minute, or Longfellyw's Psalm of Life or
anything she knows by heart-and set
her down to write business letter from
dictation, and she has to stop and turn
her machine up every three lines to see
If she has spelled a word right. It puts
one out and makes the mail late. Or
she let's it go with a blunder that would
disgrace an infant scholar, and there
isn't time to write it over. Sometimes
the whole batch of a morning has to be
done over. If [ happen to say Buenos
Avery she is dumb founded, don't know
what heather I'm naming, and I must
write it out before she knows what is
meant, and Chattahoochee would floor her
forever.
That's nv business. Now if I'm dictat-
ing on time for my paper-not minute
to spare, end it isn't the least matter how
it looks, and the proof reader minds the
spelling, zen to one, she'll have her eraser
out every other line to correct some fan
cied bleplish, and you can't get it into
head or ger either, that all you want is to
drive aheld and get that Manuscript
jerked up to the printers in fifteen sec
onds. That's what I call want of intelli-
gence. And out of 200 young men and
women we tried to fit for type writer sec
retaries, there were not five l should call
good ones, who could be trusted to write
letter without some shabby bIunder in
spelling or phrase"
1t is no uncommon thing to find a |
shorthand writer unable to make out his
own report, from the same cause that rem
ders type writer's copy incoherent, the
want of habit of fixed attention. In lack
of this, dots, dashes and worde GO wild.
1t is good training for either work to
learn long passages of any author by
heart, in the exact words of the text, tax
ing no more than one can correctly re-
member at time, repeating and re-re-
peating day after day until the whole
page is photographed on the brain.
There are plenty of people who prob
ably never made the effort OF close at
tention to anything in their lives. Their
minds pick up what impressions they